1 10 Fbyage to the North- West Coast of America, 



ill attracting towards them and killing wild beasts, by 

 clothing themselves in their skins. 



'I'he editor here stops to give an account of the benefits 

 which his countrymen have diflused over these little 

 known coasts. He takes a view ot the missions of New 

 California, which extends from Port Saint-Diego in about 

 lat. 33", to Cape Mendocina in about 40°. These missions 

 amount already to twelve ; but the most populous has only 

 about twelve hundred colonists: they enjoy at least the first 

 physical advantages of civilization ; they breed cattle, cul- 

 tivate vegetables, and collect dificrent kinds of seeds. These 

 occupations lead to a settled kind of life, which, with the 

 lessons and example of the missionaries, tends gradually to 

 soften the manners of these Indians. 



E\x'rv thing, however, had not yet been done which 

 might be accomplished in this respect ; the efforts of the 

 missionaries have only been able to make them lay aside a 

 part of their savage habits. The men and the w omen, for 

 example, go entirely naked, and run about indiscriminately 

 in the fields with the brutes in search of food. They are 

 still, in regard to modesty, what they were formerly de- 

 scribed to be by father Venegas ; who said of them, " that 

 to sec one of their people clothed, appears to them as risible 

 as an ape in clothes would appear to us." In many respects 

 they are still but children of a greater growth; their wars 

 are short, but renewed on the slightest occasion ; their pri- 

 mitive rehgion seems to be as deformed as every thing else 

 relating to their moral existence; one must look very nar- 

 rowly to see any of their rites or their dogmas. 



Two tribes of these Indians have in particular engaged 

 the attention of the Spaniards : these are the Runsians and 

 the Eslenes, which resemble each other only in some 

 points. Both of them admit polygamy; but among the 

 one the punishment of adultery is inflicted, not on the 

 woman, but on her seducer, who, according to the nature 

 of the case, and perhaps the degree of the husband's re- 

 sentment, is exposed to severe wounds which may prov^ 

 mortal, or only to be well cudgelled. Among the Eslcniana 

 the injured husband contents himself with repudiating, at 

 least for a certain time, his unfaithful spouse, or abandons 

 her to the seducer at the price he himself gave for her. This 

 custom of purchasing their wives is common to both these 

 tribes ; in both the women arc remarkable for their affection 

 to their children; they arc prolific and robust. It is not un- 

 common to see them resume their usual occupations some 

 minutes after delivery j but, as in many other purts of North 



America, 



